FS2004 Ground Poly Wizard Error Message - Empty BGL.

[ElCid97]

I've run into a small problem with trying to update Croydon. As you may have seen on the older pictures I have posted for Platinum Wings, I managed to create a ground polygon with GPW a while back to recreate the "chalk line" that was at the airfield. It's basically a groundpoly with a texture applied using "liberal" amounts of alpha channel.

After getting my hands on some Ordinance Survey maps, I decided to update some things. After getting the geo-referenced map coordinates and shifting things in SBuilder9 and ADE9X, I then went to load the original bgl file into the GPW to update the coordinates for the markings bgl to then export again for use. Unfortunately I'm now getting the following errors:

I'm not sure what I might be doing wrong here, but I'm getting the same thing with various other files I've made in the past. I've even gone into GMAX and re-created the markings plane, textured it again, and then exported into mdl again. I even tried loading another Croydon-related bgl that works fine in-sim, but when I load it into the GPW in MCX I get the same "This is an empty object!" caution line followed by an error report in the SCASM file.

I figured it was probably an older MCX that I hadn't updated so I updated to the latest one available in the dev releases (16-June-2024??) to see if that could clear up the issue. I'm still getting the same error when importing files for GPW, regardless of whether they are bgl's with coordinates or raw mdl files.

I've checked the actual "sca" files, and the latest ones that are made have empty or blank sections at the lines reporting the errors. In the original file there is data for the vertices and something called a "DrawTriList" in the file. Here is the code there:

TextureList( 0
5 00 128 128 128 0 1000.0 "croydonaerodromemarkings.bmp"
)

VertexList( 0
)

SetMaterial( 0 0 )
DrawTriList( 0
)
EndVersion

By comparison, here is the listing of code for an "sca" file I haven't touched from the earlier builds:

TextureList( 0
5 00 128 128 128 0 1000.0 "croydonaerodromemap.bmp"
)

VertexList( 0
866.547974 0.000000 -864.948120 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.999500 0.000500
866.547974 0.000000 864.948120 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.999500 0.999500
-866.547974 0.000000 -864.948120 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.000500 0.000500
-866.547974 0.000000 864.948120 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.000500 0.999500
)

SetMaterial( 0 0 )
DrawTriList( 0
0 1 2
3 2 1
)
EndVersion

Again, not sure what I might be doing wrong.

Hopefully I was able to give a good amount of info to troubleshoot. Let me know if anything additional may be needed.

Regards,

Jorge
Miami, FL

 

[arno]

Hi,

The error seems to come from vertex and triangle lists without content indeed. Would you be able to provide one of the BGL files as a sample for debugging why this happens?

I'm not sure which sim you are working for here, but often it is better to start with the orginal input if you want to change things in the GPW. Changing a BGL file made with the GPW does not always work fine as the object can be split into different segments already or corrected for the curve of the earth.

 

[ElCid97]

Thanks for the reply!

I thought I tagged the post with FS2004. I have tried both the straight mdl as well as the bgl. I've also tried an mdl I created a few days ago to see if maybe something was messed up with GMAX.

Here are the bgl's and the mdl's. The one with the "map" is the one I used as a base for making the "markings" stuff. As you can see, the map bgl has all the info fine but the other one does not.

For reference, here is what I'm starting to get now when I load the bgl that is referenced with the map which displays fine in FS2004. It's a few months old. I never got this "caution" message before (L1A6 AND L2E):

I exported this as a GP, but when I load it into the GPW it becomes a blank screen like the "markings" one. I get the same thing/message when I load the "markings" bgl that works. It's the one that is not moved. The moved one is the one with the issues.

I even changed the coordinates for the moved one to see if that may have been the issue, but it's not.

Thanks for the help!

Regards,

Jorge
Miami, FL

 

[arno]

Thanks, I'll have a look.

 

[ElCid97]

I looked at the procedures a bit and realized that when I load ANY of the files (bgl or mdl) into the GPW they are converted into empty files. Nothing is in the window, even if I change to wireframe.

When I export as an FS2002 style ground polygon bgl, it is rotated by 90* for some reason.

As a test I imported the mdl, rotated -90*, then exported as an FS2002 style ground polygon bgl (not GPW, but "Export Scenery") and it worked -- albeit with A LOT of ground flickering. Pretty much non-stop flickering that makes it pretty much useless, but at least it showed as it should and not rotated.

When I use the same procedure to import into the GPW, however, it still just turns into an empty object.

Out of curiosity, I also get this message with the FS2002 style bgl when it gets imported (the one that flickers):
"Label: L186 does not exist in file, trying to continue at next command"

Hope this helped.

Jorge
Miami, FL

 

[ElCid97]

Arno,

Took a look at the files and procedures I was doing. I unchecked the "Filter out non-ground polygons" option and the files imported in GPW without issue.

The problem now is with the export. The file is where it's supposed to be and there's no autogen suppression, but everything is rotated 90* in the final file. I managed to "fix" it by editing/swapping out numbers in the sca file and then dropping the sca file onto the SCASM executable that comes with SBuilder9. The resulting bgl worked.

I'm not sure why the exported bgl is rotated (as evidenced by the numbers in the sca file) since this never happened before.

I'll keep looking to see if there's something I may have done on my end, but I re-installed older version of MCX that I have all the way back to the beginning of the year and they all came out the same with the swapped numbers in the sca file.

I'm back on the latest dev build and I'll keep checking to see what I may have done since it's doing it with all the files now -- even some of the older ones for some converted CFS2 airport polys.

Maybe there's something in the latest Windows-10 update that may have messed things up?

Hope this helps you troubleshoot on your end.

Jorge
Miami, FL

 

[ElCid97]

Arno,

"Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa," as the old saying goes.

I read on another post for MCX by "Rhumflabby" that settings may have been changed by accident. I went through my MCX settings and realized there was an optimization setting for "DisableOptimize" that was set to "True" and not "False" for some reason.

I don't remember changing this, but after putting it back to "False" everything worked fine. I now have proper "chalk" markings and autogen that comes up to the airfield boundary where the excludes end.

I'm so sorry about the whole mess, but at least now we know to check the settings every now and then after an update -- especially Win-10 updates, since that seems to be the only difference from the time I made the original GP's to now.

For FS2004, the only other thing I can think of to make sure things work with GPW is to ensure the "Filter out non-ground polygons" area is un-checked. Otherwise the polygon won't import to the window properly either.

Again, sorry for the mess.

Jorge
Miami, FL

 

[arno]

Glad to hear that fixed it. When you wrote they were rotated 90 degrees I already wondered what might cause that.

The SCASM compile errors about the empty vertexlist are also gone now?

 

[ElCid97]

Glad to hear that fixed it. When you wrote they were rotated 90 degrees I already wondered what might cause that.

The SCASM compile errors about the empty vertexlist are also gone now?

Yes, the SCASM errors were probably related to the fact I had the option to filter out ground polygons checked. My guess is that for FS2004 it must be unchecked, because it wouldn't work with it checked.

Here's an example of some WIP for Cairo Almaza using converted CFS2 objects. It's a single plane I created in GMAX which was then divided into 4 sections mapped at 1024x1024 for an approximate 1m/pixel:

Still very much in testing, but I realized everything had been rotated when I saw the street pattern at the left turned up in the air (90* off) after it had been compiled. With the filter unchecked and the optimization option at "false" in the options, everything went back to normal.

Same thing with the markings at Croydon.

Thanks to the other issues folks have been posting about not compiling bgl files I was able to narrow it down. If it hadn't been for Rhumflabby having similar issues, I probably wouldn't have figured it out!

Jorge
Miami, FL